Lead-acid batteries are a common source of electrical energy and are often used as automotive batteries, marine batteries, consumer equipment batteries, industrial batteries, and in other applications. Among other components, lead-acid batteries include numerous plates that are assembled in a case and that are made of lead alloy metal grids with an electrochemically active battery paste material applied on the grids. The grids are usually supplied in a continuous strip of individual grids connected together. The strip is fed through a pasting machine where the battery paste material is applied to the grids. The battery paste material, however, is not always applied sufficiently over both sides of the strip of grids, and oftentimes a bottom surface of the strip has no paste below or outboard of a plane of the bottom surface and can even have portions without paste. This insufficient battery paste material, and in some cases absence of it, can degrade battery performance, shorten the battery's useful life, and cause other troubles.